Christmas at the Log Fire Cabin: A heart-warming and feel-good read
Curl up by the fire this Christmas with the ebook bestseller Catherine Ferguson.When Poppy’s boyfriend Harrison proposes the week before Christmas and gives her twelve days to decide, she doesn’t know what to do. With the festive season in full swing, it’s make or break time for the couple and the clock is ticking…Meanwhile, Poppy’s best friend Erin is desperate for the pair of them to fulfil their dream of setting up a dinner party catering company – and when an opportunity arises at a luxury log fire cabin, the girls take their chance to impress. But they hadn’t bargained on the owner of the cabin being quite so attractive – or having quite such a sexy voice.As the twelve days tick on, will Poppy realise that Harrison is the one for her? Or will it be love in the lodge when the new year comes?Lose yourself this Christmas in the new novel from the brilliant Catherine Ferguson, perfect for cosying up with by the fire.
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Christmas at the Log Fire Cabin
CATHERINE FERGUSON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
A division of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London
SE1 9GF
Copyright © Catherine Ferguson 2017
Catherine Ferguson asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © October 2017
ISBN: 9780008215743
Version: 2018-04-10
Table of Contents
For Carole. Half-cousin? Or twice-removed? Still not certain. Just really glad you’re my cousin!
When I woke, I knew – even before I drew back the curtains – that it had snowed overnight.
The light was subtly different and there was an eerie, muffled quality to the early-morning sounds out in the village of Angelford, where the shop-owners were gearing up for another chaotic, till-ringing day of pre-Christmas cheer and gift-buying.
I slipped out of bed and crossed to the window. The snow glittered in the weak early-December sunlight, swathed like a smooth layer of white icing over our tiny front garden, making comical bulbous shapes out of the holly bush and the little rickety gate.
Standing there, I thought of that other Christmas long ago, when I was twelve. Our mad snowball fight. How I’d battled to keep the snowballs coming to defend myself, hurling them too soon in my excitement so that they ended up as little more than puffs of snow rising up into the air. I remember squealing with laughter as icy water leaked down the back of my coat, my hands numb and raw with the cold because, despite Mum’s best efforts, I wouldn’t wear my gloves.
The snow always brought the memories of that time flooding back.
Not that I ever forgot.
I’d tried to wipe it from my mind. Pretend it didn’t matter. But meeting my real dad when I was twelve, only for him to turn his back on me, wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you could blot out at will.
I’d spent four days with him that Christmas. Days that were full of kindness and laughter and learning all about exotic Italy, the place where he was born. And how to make the perfect snowball. Alessandro Bianchi made me feel that I was worth knowing. He’d listened intently to the things I told him about my life and laughed at my jokes, such a stark contrast to the way my bullying stepfather, Martin, made me feel. Although it had happened years ago – I was thirty now, all grown up – I could still recall that breathless sense of wonder when Mum told me Alessandro was my real dad.
I’d had a sense that I was on the brink of something really special; that a whole new life was opening up for me …
How wrong I’d been.
My insides clenched and I turned away from the snowy scene.
It never did me any good to think about the time my real dad came to visit; to linger on those few days I spent with him, as Mum stood by, wary and watching, like a hen protecting her chick.
In my hopeful childhood innocence, I’d assumed it would be the start of something real and life-changing. But in the end, those few days of Christmas turned out to be sparkling but transitory, like the snow itself. All too soon they had melted away into nothing …
When I open the door to my best friend, Erin, she’s standing there trying not to smile and give the game away. But I can see by the sparkle in her green eyes that she has news.
She flicks back her long blonde hair as if to build up the drama. Then she whips something from behind her back and pushes it into my hands.
‘What’s this?’ I laugh. It’s a beautiful scarlet apron sprigged with a modern design of snow-white Christmas trees. ‘For me?’
She nods gleefully. ‘For you, Poppy. You’re going to need it. Mrs Morelli wants you to cook for her on Saturday night!’ Her last few words are more of an excited squeal.
I glance wide-eyed from her to the living-room door. It’s open just a crack. ‘Are you mad?’
